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Caitlin MacNeal

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Caitlin MacNeal is a News Writer based in Washington, D.C. Before joining TPM, Caitlin interned and wrote for the Huffington Post, the Sunlight Foundation and Slate. She is a graduate of Georgetown University.

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Caitlin

In a speech Friday afternoon in Norfolk, Virginia, Attorney General Jeff Sessions addressed recent criticisms of the Justice Department and vowed to defend his department from any “unfair” critiques and root out any bias he finds among the department’s staffers.

The comments come as the Justice Department and FBI face an effort from GOP lawmakers in Congress to undermine the investigations into President Donald Trump’s campaign and transition team. Republicans have alleged bias among the FBI officials investigating Trump and claimed that the FBI abused a surveillance program while carrying out that investigation.

Sessions said that one of his goals as attorney general is “eliminating political bias or favoritism – in either direction – from our investigations and prosecutions,” according to his prepared remarks.

“That sort of thinking is the antithesis of what the Department stands for, and I won’t tolerate it,” he said.

The attorney general said he would identify “mistakes of the past” and correct them “for the future.”

“When we find problems, we’re addressing them head on, not sweeping them under the rug. Much of what we are doing is behind the scenes, but some of it is squarely in the public view,” Sessions said in his prepared remarks.

Despite Sessions’ apparent acknowledgement of bias within the Justice Department, a claim that has not been proven, he said that his department would “defend our investigators and prosecutors from criticism that is unfair.”

“Our goal is justice. All our work is subject to review with certain restraints. We will not reject justified review. Our work requires constant improvement and adjustment, but it must always be founded on integrity and law,” he said in his prepared remarks.

Sessions also called for Congress to be “a partner in this effort.”

“When they learn of a problem and start asking questions, that is a good thing. Sunlight truly is the best disinfectant. Truth produces confidence,” he said.

A memo crafted by Republican staffers on the House Intelligence Committee purports to show that the FBI misled a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court judge by failing to mention that one of its sources for a surveillance application, Trump dossier author Christopher Steele, was being paid by Democrats for his research. (It does not appear that the FBI relied solely on Steele’s information for the FISA warrant application.)

House Republicans have not permitted the Justice Department to view the anti-FBI memo despite calls from the department to view the memo.

President Donald Trump has turned his frustration with the Russia probe toward Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in recent weeks, even suggesting he fire the Justice Department official, CNN reported Friday night.

Trump’s advisers have so far managed to convince Trump not to fire Rosenstein, according to CNN.

Rosenstein is just one of many top Justice Department and FBI officials that Trump has become angry with or considered ousting. The CNN report on Trump’s inclination to fire Rosenstein helps paint a picture of a president obsessed with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into his campaign and hell-bent on minimizing its damage.

Trump fired FBI Director James Comey back in May out of anger over the Russia probes. He was frustrated with Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia probe, which led to Rosenstein’s appointment of Mueller to lead the investigation. Trump’s public humiliation of Sessions prompted the attorney general to offer his resignation, though Trump ultimately kept Sessions on.

The President ordered the ouster of Mueller over the summer, but backed off when White House Counsel Don McGahn threatened to resign. The Trump administration has also pressured the new FBI director to fire certain top officials in the bureau, including deputy director Andrew McCabe.

Despite the revelations that Trump ordered Mueller’s firing, Republicans in Congress do not seem eager to to put legislation in place to protect the special counsel.

Two bills aimed at preventing President Donald Trump from firing special counsel Robert Mueller stalled last year with a lack of enthusiasm from Republicans in Congress. And despite Thursday’s revelation that Trump did order Mueller’s ouster over the summer, the bills’ odds still don’t look great.

The bipartisan bills were introduced last summer, when President Donald Trump was raging against Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the Russia probe. Some lawmakers in Congress grew concerned that Trump would seek to oust Mueller by replacing Sessions, and drew up legislation to protect the special counsel.

But most Republicans in the Senate dismissed the bills, arguing that the legislation was unnecessary because Trump wouldn’t dare fire Mueller.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said in November that he had not heard “much pressure to pass anything” and that there was “no indication” Trump was not cooperating with Mueller. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said in August that a bill to keep Trump from firing Mueller was uncalled for “because I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

Even Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), two vocal critics of the President, said that they were not worried that Trump would actually try to remove Mueller.

However, thanks to the New York Times, we now know that Trump did order Mueller’s removal, and backed off the effort only when White House Counsel Don McGahn threatened to resign.

As of Friday afternoon, Republicans in Congress were not exactly rushing to promote legislation protecting the special counsel, even as their Democratic colleagues urged them to do so.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called for Congress to pass a bill to protect Mueller, and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) issued a blistering statement complaining that “instead of protecting Mueller’s investigation from undue interference, many Republicans in Congress have stepped up their spurious attacks against the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Special Counsel.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), did tell CNN Friday that he would be “open” to considering bills to protect Mueller but said that he still doesn’t believe Trump would fire Mueller. However, Republican leaders have yet to weigh in on the matter.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), one of the co-sponsors for a bill to protect to the special counsel, now says that its not an “urgent” matter.

“[T]he chatter that the administration is considering removing Special Counsel Mueller has completely come to a halt,” Tillis spokesperson Daniel Keylin told The Daily Beast. “In fact, the president and his administration have spoken favorably of Special Counsel Mueller’s professionalism and integrity, and recent reports indicate the investigation may soon come to an end.”

Many of the Republicans who did respond to the news Thursday night and Friday simply shrugged it off. Rep. Jason Lewis (R-MN) said he wasn’t sure he could believe the New York Times report revealing Trump’s push to fire Mueller.

“There have been so many stories on this particular quote, unquote Russia investigation, I don’t know what to believe anymore. We’ll see,” Lewis said on CNN Friday, adding that the “mainstream” media relies too heavily on anonymous sources.

Fox News’ Sean Hannity at first questioned the New York Times’ reporting, but when his own network confirmed the story, he argued that Trump had the right to question Mueller’s credibility.

Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) found the silver lining in the reports and pointed out that White House Counsel Don McGahn stopped Trump from firing Mueller.

“If it’s true, it would be concerning to me,” Stewart told CNN’s Chris Cuomo Thursday night. “But it would also show that the process worked, that the people and the organization around the President did what they needed to do and that the outcome was actually the right outcome and that was Mr. Mueller wasn’t fired.”

After learning about the New York Times report Thursday night that President Donald Trump sought to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, one Republican congressman found a silver lining.

Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) told CNN Thursday night that the fact that Mueller has not been fired shows that the process to reel in the President’s instincts works. The congressman largely refrained from passing judgment on the report, telling CNN that he had not read the Times’ report or heard from the White House about the revelation. Several outlets confirmed the New York Times’ reporting later on Thursday and early Friday.

“But it would also show that the process worked, that the people and the organization around the President did what they needed to do and that the outcome was actually the right outcome and that was Mr. Mueller wasn’t fired,” Stewart continued.

The New York Times reported that White House Counsel Don McGahn threatened to resign if Trump proceeded to fire Mueller over the summer, and that Trump then backed off from the idea. Stewart focused on the ability of Trump administration staff to convince Trump not to fire Mueller.

“Maybe the President — maybe he was angry, maybe he was frustrated, maybe for a moment he suggested this. We just don’t know. If he did, his instincts were wrong, but the people around him protected from those instincts,” Stewart said on CNN “And once again, the investigation went forward as it should, and I think the process served the President.”

Trump has dismissed the New York Times’ report as “fake news,” and Trump’s attorney, Ty Cobb, declined to comment to the Times.

In an interview with Piers Morgan on Thursday, President Donald Trump addressed his decision in November to retweet unverified anti-Muslim videos posted by the leader of a British far-right group, claiming that he knows “nothing” about the British figure he retweeted.

When first asked about the videos, Trump said he retweeted the videos “because I am a big believer in fighting radical Islamic terror” and “this was a depiction of radical Islamic terror.” However, two of the videos have been debunked. Trump also faced criticism for the retweets from Republican lawmakers in the U.S. and from British Prime Minister Theresa May, who said that the British group “seeks to divide communities through their use of hateful narratives which peddle lies and stoke tensions.”

Morgan noted to Trump that the videos were unverified, and in response, Trump rejected any notion that he would be responsible for the dissemination of the videos since he merely retweeted them. He also claimed that the retweets were not a “big story” in the U.S., despite the fact that major American news outlets covered the retweets and May’s concern that Trump would boost the far-right British group.

“I didn’t do it. I didn’t go out — I did a retweet. It was a big story where you are, but it was not a big story where I am,” Trump said.

Morgan asked if Trump could apologize, but the President stopped short of doing so, claiming that he does not know the group that pushed the unverified videos, despite major news coverage.

Pressed to say whether he would disavow Britain First, Trump replied, “I don’t want to be involved with people like that. But you’re telling me about these people because I know nothing about these people.”

Watch part of the interview, which aired on “Good Morning Britain” on Friday:

The New York Times reported Thursday night that Trump wanted to fire Mueller in the summer of 2017 and had drawn up a list of conflicts of interest he saw that should keep Mueller from leading the Russia probe. Trump backed away from that plan when White House counsel Don McGahn threatened to quit over the move, per the New York Times.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said Thursday that he plans to release the transcript of the committee’s interview with Donald Trump Jr., as well as the transcripts of others involved in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer.

Grassley’s announcement comes after Democrats on the committee called for Trump Jr.’s transcript to be released, including Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who suggested that transcripts from the committee’s interviews could “reveal other, and better-founded, concerns about witness false statements.”

In prepared remarks for the committee’s Thursday meeting, Grassley said that he has always pushed for “as much transparency as possible.” He said that he had been waiting for the committee to finish interviewing all witnesses about the Trump Tower meeting, during which several Trump campaign associates met with a Kremlin-linked lawyer promising “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.

The committee was only waiting to interview Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Grassley said. He then blamed Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the committee’s ranking member, for scaring away Kushner by releasing the transcript of the Fusion GPS co-founder.

“I had hoped to speak with all the witnesses surrounding the Trump Tower meeting before releasing any of those interview transcripts. But the Ranking Member unilaterally released the transcript of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson. That has spooked other potential witnesses,” Grassley said in his prepared remarks. “As a result, it looks like our chances of getting a voluntary interview with Mr. Kushner have been shot.”

Bloomberg News reported that Kushner’s lawyers did not decline an interview with the Senate Judiciary Committee, but asked when lawmakers can disclose the contents of closed-door interviews and asked if Grassley had seen Kushner’s Senate Intelligence Committee interview.

Feinstein released the transcript of Simpson’s interview with the committee earlier in January after Grassley and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) referred Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence officer who compiled the so-called Trump dossier, to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. Republicans in Congress have recently upped their attacks on the FBI and Justice Department and placed great emphasis on investigating how the FBI and DOJ handled the dossier. In her statement accompanying Simpson’s transcript, Feinstein said that she was concerned “a deeply troubling effort to undermine the investigation into potential collusion and obstruction of justice.”

President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening said that he does not remember asking Andrew McCabe, then the acting FBI director, who he voted for in the 2016 election and argued that it would not be a “big deal” if he had.

“I don’t think so,” Trump told reporters in the White House when asked whether he asked McCabe who he voted for.

The President reportedly asked McCabe who he voted for during a May 2017 meeting shortly after James Comey was fired as FBI director. In that same meeting, Trump reportedly mentioned that McCabe’s wife received a campaign donation from former Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

Pressed on whether it’s possible he asked McCabe who he voted for, Trump told reporters, “I don’t know what’s the big deal with that. Because I would ask you, ‘Who did you vote for?'”

“I don’t think that’s a big deal. But I don’t remember that. I saw that this morning. I don’t remember asking him that question,” Trump added.

McCabe has long been the focus of Trump’s ire. The President has suggested that McCabe is biased because his wife, who ran a Democratic campaign for a Virginia state senate seat, accepted a campaign contribution from McAuliffe.

Reporters asked Trump on Wednesday if he believes McCabe should leave the FBI, but Trump wouldn’t say.

“Well, McCabe got more than $500,000 from essentially Hillary Clinton. And is he investigating Hillary Clinton?” he replied.

Asked if he regrets McCabe’s time as acting FBI director, Trump again failed to give a straight answer.

“You know what, I keep out of it. You’d find that hard to believe. I keep out of it. That’s the way it fell. He’s been there. It’s one of those things,” Trump said. “But he was the star of many of my speeches. Because he got from $500,000 to $700,000, whatever the number was. Got that money for the wife.”

In yet another change of opinion by the President, Donald Trump suggested to reporters Wednesday evening that he would be open to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program recipients to obtain a path to citizenship.

“We’re going to morph into it. It’s going to happen at some point in the future,” Trump told reporters at the White House, according to CNN. “If they do a great job, I think it’s a nice thing to have the incentive of, after a period of years, being able to become a citizen.”

Trump made the comments in an impromptu gaggle with reporters at the White House who were speaking with a senior administration official about the Trump administration’s proposal for restoring DACA, per Roll Call.

It’s not clear exactly what Trump meant when he said he’d like to “morph into it,” and the President and his staff could easily pivot away from Trump’s Wednesday evening comments as negotiations continue. The President recently rejected a proposal from a bipartisan group of senators that included a path to citizenship for DACA recipients.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the authors of the bipartisan plan rejected by Trump, said Wednesday night that he was encouraged by Trump’s comments.

President Trump’s support for a pathway to citizenship will help us get strong border security measures as we work to modernize a broken immigration system.

With this strong statement I have never felt better about our chances of finding a solution on immigration.

After President Donald Trump said Wednesday evening that he is willing to speak with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team “under oath” in an impromptu gaggle with White House reporters, his attorney quickly clarified that Trump merely meant to say that he’s willing to meet with Mueller.

“He’s ready to meet with them, but he’ll be guided by the advice of his personal counsel,” Ty Cobb, Trump’s personal attorney handling the Russia probe, told the New York Times Wednesday night.

The President’s attorneys have been working with Mueller’s team for weeks on setting up an interview between Trump and the special counsel’s investigators. Trump’s team has reportedly worked to set some parameters on the interview, and Mueller’s team has given Trump’s lawyers potential topics for the upcoming interview, which include the decisions to fire FBI Director James Comey and National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, according to CNN.

Despite his attorneys’ careful work to set up an limited interview with Mueller’s investigators behind closed doors, Trump said that he would be willing to talk to Mueller “under oath” in freewheeling comments to reporters.

“I would love to do that and I’d like to do it as soon as possible,” Trump told reporters. “There’s been no collusion whatsoever, no obstruction whatsoever, and I’m looking forward to it.”